12 April 2017

But
they got them back for Fast & Furious,
which probably had the best tag line: “New Model, Original Parts.” That was the only reason I got excited about
this movie. By excited, I mean excited
enough to rent it. I wasn’t going to go
waste my hard earned $8 to watch another atrocity in theaters. Fast
& Furious opened in April of 2009, as a pre-Memorial Day release. It opened strong, held on strong, and became
the top earning movie of the franchise, and the second highest grossing movie
involving car racing.

The
movie opens with a semi-truck heist, reminiscent of the first film. Instead of electronics in Los Angeles, this
time they are stealing gasoline in Dominican Republic. Han, from Tokyo Drift, is driving one truck,
and a new guy named Tego is driving the other.
Dom (Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are in a lead car. After the hijacking goes south, the local law
enforcement closes in on Dom and his crew.
They split up. Han says that he hears
that they are doing interesting things in Tokyo. So, one could assume that is setting up for
Tokyo Drift, but Han is returning in Fast
Five which leaves me to wonder how they are going to tie in the third
film. That night, Dom leaves Letty for
her own protection. Despite her pleas
against it, Dom slips away in the night.

Brian
(Walker) is now an agent of the F.B.I.
He and his division are charged with finding and bringing down a heroin
dealer, Braga. Brian chases down a lead,
literally. The guy gives Brain the name
David Park. Now, Letty is murdered in
cold blood. Word gets to Dom via Mia
(Brewster), and he returns to L.A. for the funeral. He starts to investigate her death, and he is
lead to a guy named David Park. David
Park tells the F.B.I. that Braga’s right hand man Campos (John Ortiz) is
holding a race audition for the last spot in the next drug run. Brian shows up to race, but so does Dom. Brian shows up for his job. While Dom shows
up to avenge Letty’s death. Dom wins the
race. Brian sets up a different driver
with a bogus drug possession to get in the race anyway.

So,
they make their drug run through some bad CGI tunnels under the Mexico/U.S.
border. Once they reach the drop point,
it is clear that the hired drivers are going to be executed by Campos’s lead
driver, Fenix. Dom and Brian escape
execution with the $60 million in heroin just smuggled into the country. The FBI sets up a sting to get Braga out in
the open, but it goes south. This leaves
Brian no choice, but to once again defy authority.

In the
finale, Dom and Brian go to Mexico to bring back Campos, who is also Braga,
through the CGI tunnel. The idea is to
try and clear Dom’s name. Dom gets his
revenge on Fenix in a very anti-climactic battle. U.S. authorities arrive on the scene, taking
into custody Braga and Dom. At a court
hearing, Dom is denied clemency and sentenced to 25 to life. We are left with him on a prison bus heading
to jail. But the bus is surrounded by
three cars driven by Brian, Mia, and Tego.

Fast & Furious was
the first movie to really delve into a deep plot. I am not saying that this is by any means an
Academy Award winning script, but it was a refreshing idea. I enjoyed seeing the old cast, sans Vince,
back together. I did not like how they
just killed Letty. She was one of my
favorite characters from the first film.
In the grand scheme of things, I enjoyed Justin Lin’s second attempt at
this franchise. Would I watch this one
again on its own? Maybe. It is a decent use of 107 minutes.Rating: 7.5/10

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
opened in 2006, three years after 2 Fast
2 Furious. It opened weaker than the
first two films, and finished with a domestic take putting it a distant
third. As I sat to watch this one for
the second time, I remembered how I felt
about the movie after my first viewing so I was not that motivated to watch
this one again, but I put it in the DVD player anyway, and away I went.

Tokyo Drift opens
with a ridiculous car race through a housing development that is under
construction. The racers are Sean
Boswell (Lucas Black) and Clay (Zachery Ty Bryan). Why are they racing? In typical Fast and Furious fashion, they are racing over a girl. Because this is the last straw for Sean’s
mom, he is sent to Tokyo to live with his father, who is stationed there with
the Navy.

So, on
his first day of school, Sean runs into Twinkie (Bow Wow), and they become
friends because Twinkie has a tricked out car.
Sean also meets Neela (Nathalie Kelley).
She is gorgeous, and Sean is instantly infatuated with her. That night, Twinkie takes Sean to a parking
garage where they drift race. In brief, the cars are lighter and are fitted
with special tires that allow them to slide or drift around corners.

In
typical Fast and Furious fashion, our
hotshot hero challenges a character known only as DK, which does not stand for
Donkey Kong, but Drift King. Why does he
challenge him? DK is the boyfriend of
Neela. There is just one problem; Sean
doesn’t have a car. Make that two, he
doesn’t know how to drift race. Han
(Sung Kang) gives him the keys to his car because he wants to see what he can
do. Well, Sean loses. But, unlike the previous entries in the franchise,
the cops don’t come.

Now,
Sean works for Han to pay for the damaged car, just like Brian worked for Dom
to pay for the repairs to the Supra. Han
pays DK money for something illegal I guess because DK’s uncle is in the
Yakuza. It is money to operate on his
turf. Tensions build between Han and DK
and come to head when it is discovered that Han has been skimming money from
the mafia.

Along the way, Sean is taught how to drift by
Han and his crew. An interesting
fact: the guy who is considered the
father of drifting has a cameo as one of the fishermen during Sean’s
lessons. Sean finally gets a chance to
redeem himself and demonstrate his drifting skills against Morimoto, DK’s right
hand man. Sean wins. Again, no cops come.

Leading
up to the inevitable final race between DK and Sean, Han is killed in a massive
street chase, not race. In an act of
avenging a friend, and acting macho for Neela who now wants to be with Sean,
Sean goes straight to the Yakuza uncle and challenges DK to a race. The loser leaves the turf. Back
at Sean’s dad’s place, Han’s crew puts his dad’s Mustang back together and
turns it into a drifting car.The final
race takes place at night down a steep curving mountain, a mountain that only
DK has made it down.In short, Sean wins
and gets the girl.In the aftermath,
Sean is the new DK, and is challenged by someone who says Han was family.This unnamed driver is Dom (Vin Diesel) who
appears in a quick cameo.

As I
look back at Tokyo Drift, I am
shocked by how much less I hated it this time. It wasn’t as
atrocious as I thought it would be. The
story line had the same elements as the first two films, with the exception of
no undercover cop. They had the tricked
out cars, the warring gangs, the hero working off debt, the racing for the hot
girl, and a rapper in an insignificant role.
What didn’t work? The whole fish out of water story line they tried with
Sean in Tokyo went over like a lead balloon.
It just felt forced. This is the
only movie in the franchise without Paul Walker. But don’t fret; Lucas Black
filled the bad acting void.

Oddly
enough, Justin Lin directed this movie.
This is the least successful film of the franchise but somehow Lin kept
the reigns for not only the fourth, but also the fifth and sixth film. What he did well in Tokyo Drift was the racing was real. There weren’t any CGI cars. Instead, real stunt drivers drifted real
cars. I find this odd because the thing
I remember most about Fast & Furious,
the fourth film, is that it was all CGI.
Another quick note: in the chronology of the franchise, the events of this film take place after six and before seven. Lastly, Han is the only character from this movie to
make it into another film, aside from Sean's quick, almost pointless cameo, in Furious 7. This non-Paul
Walker, non-Vin Diesel experiment was an utter failure.

2 Fast 2 Furious debuted two years later in the
summer of 2003. It opened strong, and finished reasonably. It opens with Brian
(Walker), now an ex-cop, street racing in Miami. He is the Racing Dom of Miami, and Tej (Ludacris)
is garage owner Dom. Apparently, they
needed both of them to split the duties of Vin Diesel, who sat this installment
out. Brian wins the street course race,
not a drag race, after ramping his car over an opening draw bridge. Then, cops arrive, racers flee, and Brain is
caught.

Next
we are introduced to U.S. Customs Agents Marham (James Remar) and Dunn. With the help of Brian’s old boss from Fast 1, Agent Bilkins, they are able to
get Brian to agree to help them catch a smuggler by offering to clear his
record at completion. Brian manages to
work in his old friend Roman “Rome” Pierce (Tyrese) as his partner, as long as
they clear his record, too. We meet Rome
as he is competing in a demolition derby with a house arrest bracelet on. After a childish fistfight between Rome and
Brian, Rome agrees to help the cause.

From
here, the movie doesn’t really focus on the cars as much as it recreates the
typical Miami Vice plot. A bad guy is smuggling contraband from Cuba to
Miami. A cop is deep undercover and could
be compromised. I think they used the
plot for the Miami Vice movie, too.

Anyway,
the guys race for an audition to run for the bad guy Carter Verone (Cole
Hauser). They win the audition, which
shocks no one. Brian starts to make
sweet on Verone’s lady, Monica (Eve Mendes), who is the possibly compromised
undercover agent. Tension builds between
the two heroes and Verone’s two thugs.

The
finale of 2 Fast 2 Furious is a scene
I remember. The police chase Rome and
Brian to a huge airport hangar. The
police surround the hangar, the doors open and every tricked out car and truck
in the Miami area comes driving out with the help of Tej and his friends. I know they tried, but Tej, Suki, Orange
Julius, and Slap Jack are not replacements for Dom and his crew.

So,
the good guys end up defying the rules of physics and ramp their car onto the
villain’s escape yacht. Monica is not
compromised, and all is well. Brian and
Rome’s records are clear. As they walk
away, they talk to each other about opening a garage with the money that they
skimmed from their drug dealing antagonist.
Though, this is not where we find Brian in six years. I don’t know where we are going to catch up
with Rome. He will make his return to
this lucrative franchise on Friday.

This
was only my second viewing of 2 Fast 2
Furious. It was directed by Academy
Award nominated John Singleton (Boyz n
the Hood, Shaft, Four Brothers). His
direction was a bit better than Cohen’s from the first film. The dialog was better, but it was not as
memorable. There aren’t any “I live my
life, a quarter of a mile at a time” lines.
Would I use up 107 minutes to watch this again? In two years when the sixth movie comes out,
sure. Until then? Probably not.

The Fast and the Furiouscame out in the summer of 2001. I remember this fondly for many reasons. This was Vin Diesel's big break. He had a minor hit with the underratedPitch Blackthe year before, but this put him on the map as an action hero. Paul Walker was coming off of two mid-level hits with his high school sports dramaVarsity Bluesand college fraternity thrillerThe Skulls. Like Diesel, Walker was thrust into the spotlight following the success ofThe Fast and the Furious.

That summer, I was working at the local theater. I remember staying late on Thursday for an employees’-only sneak. After watching the movie, all of us employees were ready to go out and street race. That weekend at the theater was hilarious. All the local kids drove their suped-up Hondas and Toyotas to the theater. Once they left, they would peel out and race each other out of the parking lot. Why was this hilarious? The police just sat out in the parking lot in unmarked cars waiting for these gearheads to do just that. I cannot imagine how many tickets were written that weekend within a two-mile radius of the theater.

Lastly, my fondness for the movie centers on the bootleg version of this film that all the students on my dorm floor had. It had no music. The entire soundtrack, songs and score, was nonexistent. This made for a hilarious viewing, as we sat around a fifteen-inch tube monitor. Some of the scenes were laughable without music. The bass in the trunk was thumping visually, but there was no bass sound. The characters were shouting over nothing. They were dancing to nothing. They were bobbing their heads to music only they could hear. Classic.

The Fast and the Furiousopens with a semi-truck heist that has an excitement and awe-factor that none of the sequels have been able to recreate. All the robbers are wearing black masks, so you are not sure who they are. We are not even sure what they are stealing. We then cut to Brian O'Connor (Walker) red-lining his Eclipse before hitting the infamous NOS button boosting him up to over 140 mph. But, he is not satisfied, as he goes back to his job at an aftermarket car parts store. We then find out that he is LAPD working with the FBI to investigate the recent rash of semi-truck heists.

In the effort to get inside information about the semi-truck heists, Brian enters his Eclipse as collateral into a street race against the legendary Dom Toretto (Diesel) and his Mazda RX-7. Brian loses. Cops raid the race. Everyone scatters. Dom is about to caught, but Brian saves the day. They accidentally run across Johnny Tran (Rick Yune) and his gang. They shoot the Eclipse and hit the NOS, blowing up the entire car. This means that Brian owes Dom a 10-second car. Brian later shows up at Dom’s garage with a jalopy of what could be a sweet Toyota Supra. While getting buddy-buddy with Dom and his crew, Vince (Matt Schultze), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Jesse (Chad Lindberg), Brian finds evidence that Tran's crew is pulling off the heists. After the raid turns up nothing, Brian's loyalty is questioned because of his relationship with Dom's sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster).

A showdown is set when Dom's crew and Tran's crew show up to Race Wars. There, tricked-out cars drag race head-to-head legally. Confrontations and conflicts fill the short amount of time at Race Wars. Jesse from Dom's crew loses to Tran. Dom beats Tran's face in. Brian watches a heated conversation between Mia and Dom which reveals that Dom’s crew is actually behind the semi-truck heists. Dom's crew leaves for another heist. Brian and Mia go to try and stop them. They turn out to show up in time to save them. Brian blows his cover to everyone to save Vince of Dom's crew. Then, there is the finale drag race between the recently finished Supra and Dom's Dad's Charger. If you haven't seen this scene, why are you reading this article?

The Fast and the Furiousis a well-paced action/adventure film directed by Rob Cohen (xXx, The Skulls) from a screenplay by Gary Scott Thompson based on a magazine article “Racer X”. That's right, a magazine article was the inspiration for this ludicrous franchise. Pun intended. I can say that this was the perfect way to spend 106 minutes. As for how well does it stand the test of time? I think that if you don’t have the nostalgic memories as I do, you will not be impressed with the bad acting, bad dialog, and two-minute “10-second” races.

Who is the Hairy Man?

I recently got a position with insideSTL.com as a movie critic. I will be posting on there once a week and here the rest of the time. I plan to post links between the sites to increase cross traffic. That means I should post 1 new review a week, at least!